CNSNews.com reports:
In a legal argument formally presented in federal court in the case of Hobby Lobby v. Kathleen Sebelius, the Obama administration is claiming that the First Amendment—which expressly denies the government the authority to prohibit the “free exercise” of religion—nonetheless allows it to force Christians to directly violate their religious beliefs even on a matter that involves the life and death of innocent human beings.
Because federal judges—including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—have refused to grant an injunction protecting the owners of Hobby Lobby from being forced to act against their Christian faith, those owners will be subject to federal fines of up to $1.3 million per day starting Tuesday for refusing to include abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health plan.
The Obama administration is making a two-fold argument for why it can force Christians to act against their faith in complying with the regulation it has issued under the Obamacare law that requires virtually all health care plans to cover, without co-pay, sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs.
The first argument the administration makes against the owners of Hobby Lobby is that Americans lose their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion when they form a corporation and engage in commerce. A person’s Christianity, the administration argues, cannot be carried out through activities he engages in through an incorporated business.
“Hobby Lobby is a for-profit, secular employer, and a secular entity by definition does not exercise religion,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Stuart Delery in a filing submitted in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.
“Because Hobby Lobby is a secular employer, it is not entitled to the protections of the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act],” Delery told the court on behalf of the administration. “This is because, although the First Amendment freedoms of speech and association are ‘right[s] enjoyed by religious and secular groups alike,’ the Free Exercise Clause ‘gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.’”
In keeping with Delery’s argument, the Washington Post, as a corporation, can use its First Amendment-protected freedom of speech to write editorials in support of the Obama administration imposing its contraception mandate on businesses like Hobby Lobby. But the members of the family that created and owns Hobby Lobby, because they formed Hobby Lobby as a corporation, have no First Amendment freedom of religion that protects them from being forced by the government to act against their religious beliefs in providing abortion-inducing drugs.
The second argument the administration makes to justify forcing Christians to act against their faith is more sweeping. Here the administration argues it can force a person to act against his religion so long as the coercion is done under the authority of a law that is neutral and generally applicable—in other words, as long as the law was not written specifically to persecute Christians as Christians, the government can use that law to persecute Christians.
Hobby Lobby is a family business. David Green created it in his garage in Oklahoma City in 1972. He and his wife, Barbara, and their three children—Steve, Mart and Darsee Green Lett-- have grown the business to where it now operates 500 stores in 41 states. David Green is Hobby Lobby’s CEO; Steve Green is its president; Mart Green is vice CEO; and Darsee Lett is vice president. Mart Green is also CEO of the privately owned Mardel chain of Christian bookstores, which operates 35 stores in 7 states. Through Hobby Lobby, the Greens have created more than 13,000 jobs. Mardel has created 372 jobs.
The Greens, who are Evangelical Christians, do not suspend their religious beliefs while running their businesses. Instead, they strive to run them fully in accordance with their Christian beliefs. They are unanimous in stating that they have always “sought to run Hobby Lobby in harmony with God’s laws and in a manner which brings glory to God.” They do not have two sets of morals—one for when they are at church or at home and another for when they are working on their businesses. They have only one set of morals—that they strive to follow at work or any other activity. For example, they close their business on Sundays, so their employees can spend that day with their families, and they pay their full-time workers a minimum hourly wage of $13, which is far exceeds the federal minimum wage.
They also provide their employees with a generous self-insured health care plan, and they even operate an on-site, cost-free health clinic at their corporate headquarters. But, guided by their Christian faith, the Greens believe that human life begins at conception and that aborting on unborn life is wrong. In keeping with this, they do not cover in their employee health plan abortions, abortion-inducing drugs or IUDs that prevent implantation of an embryo.
Unlike Catholics, the Greens do not believe that contraception and sterilization are morally wrong.
In September, the Greens, Hobby Lobby and Mardel bookstores sued Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the departments of Health Human Service, Labor and Treasury. Their complaint said that the Obamacare contraception mandate violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion because supporting abortion or counseling for abortion is contrary to their religious faith.
As the mandate now stands, the Greens must begin complying with it on Jan. 1. On Nov. 11, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton refused to grant a preliminary injunction to stop the mandate from being enforced on the Greens while the court decided their case on its merits. In his ruling on the injunction, Judge Heaton determined that the Greens were not likely to establish they had a right to “free exercise” of religion while operating Hobby Lobby.
‘[T]he court concludes plaintiffs have not established a likelihood of success as to their constitutional claims,” said Judge Heaton. “The corporations lack free exercise rights subject to being violated and, as the challenged statutes/regulations are neutral and of general applicability as contemplated by the constitutional standard, plaintiffs are unlikely to successfully establish a constitutional violation in any event.”
The Greens appealed their request for an injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. A panel of two appeals court judges refused their plea. They then appealed to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who sits over that circuit, and she declined to reverse the lower courts and issue an injunction.
When Sotomayor ruled against a preliminary injunction on Thursday, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Greens, issued a statement indicating that the Greens would not start complying with the mandate on Tuesday and that they would continue to pursue their case in federal court.
“Hobby Lobby will continue their appeal before the Tenth Circuit,” said Becket Fund General Counsel Kyle Duncan. “The Supreme Court merely decided not to get involved in the case at this time. It left open the possibility of review after their appeal is completed in the Tenth Circuit. The company will continue to provide health insurance to all qualified employees. To remain true to their faith, it is not their intention, as a company, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.”
As the nation approaches the much publicized fiscal cliff, it also approaches a moral cliff: Will the Obama administration compel Christians to act against their faith? As of now, the answer seems plain: Starting Tuesday, it will.
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Monday, December 31, 2012
Hobby Lobby To Face Millions In Fines Every Day For Refusing To Abide By Obamacare Mandate That Employer-Based Insurance Provide Morning After Pills
Senator Rand Paul: Slams "Spending Bill" Fiscal Cliff Deal
Politico reports:
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said preliminary details of a potential fiscal cliff deal that emerged Monday are a “deal killer” for him because they don’t slash spending, though he conceded a scaled-back deal could pass both chambers with bipartisan support.
“Not only are they raising taxes — maybe on a smaller percentage of people but a large amount of money — but they’re also going to spend more money,” Paul said. “So it’s a spending bill.”
Paul, a tea party Republican, continued, “I object to increasing spending and increasing taxes. That’s really the real deal killer for me. If it were just tax rates, and you told me I had the choice of protecting 99 percent, I would vote … for that. Once Democrats sign on board in the House, it should pass as well.”
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Senate Report: Obama Administration "Inconsistent" On Benghazi
The committee found that the State Department failed to appropriately assess and heighten security measures after intelligence showed that Americans stationed in Benghazi could be threatened by terror groups, according to reports from media groups that obtained an advance copy of the findings. The report will be released Monday. While the committee report acknowledges that there was no specific intelligence pointing to an imminent attack, officials in Washington failed to take “effective steps” to protect the Benghazi facility and the diplomats there. The report also blames the Pentagon, finding that the Defense Department (DOD) had failed to place adequate resources in the region to respond “in the event of a crisis.” "Although DOD attempted to quickly mobilize its resources, it did not have assets or personnel close enough to reach Benghazi in a timely fashion," the report concludes. The report is also harshly critical of the administration’s handling of the attack, finding the White House explanation in the days following the assault “inconsistent.”Tweet
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Rep. Darrell Issa: "Washington Spenders Flunk Basic Math: Raising Taxes Won’t Avoid ‘Fiscal Cliff’"
The Congressman wrote in the Washington Times:
Politicians in Washington have spent the better part of the past two months advancing a myth that is undermining one of the most important public policy debates in recent memory. It’s a myth that is coming at the expense of solutions based on common sense that could return us to balance and fiscal stability.
Twenty-six years ago, President Reagan implemented significant tax reforms that lowered the individual income tax rate, limited deductions and brought equality to tax rates across all levels. Before that reform, there had been 15 different marginal tax rates reaching levels as high as 50 percent for top brackets. By the time Reagan left office, the number of brackets had been reduced to two: 15 percent and 28 percent.
In 1993, President Clinton raised the top two income rates to 36 percent and 39.6 percent while also raising the corporate tax rate, increasing the taxable portion of Social Security benefits and increasing income taxable for Medicare. This is what has become known as the “Clinton tax rates.”
In 2001, President George W. Bush changed the rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, lowered the capital gains and dividend income rates, and expanded credits and deductions such as the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
So much time and energy is being spent advancing the myth that raising taxes is the best way to avoid falling off the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
If you raised taxes on the top income bracket, you would generate around $1 trillion over 10 years. The past four years under President Obama have resulted in trillion-dollar deficits each year. At this rate, in 10 years we’re looking at $10 trillion in new debt. At best, the “tax-the-rich” proposal is just a 10 percent solution.
Let’s take this tax-more, spend-more approach to the extreme. If you return everyone to the Clinton-era tax rates, you’re still left with a 10-year, $2.3 trillion deficit, and that’s assuming everything stays as it is right now, and Washington breaks its trend of spending more every year. (Even if we go over the fiscal cliff and return to Clinton-era tax rates, we’re still left with at least a $2.3 trillion deficit over the next 10 years.) The bottom line is this: Under no proposed scenario does raising taxes eliminate the deficit and return us to a balanced budget. The problem is government spending.
This fixation with tax increases is doing a huge disservice to the American people because it ignores the real crisis: government spending. By now, you know all too well that government spends more than it takes in. The federal government is spending more per household than ever before. Since 1965, spending per household has grown by 152 percent.
Conveniently omitted from the current fiscal-cliff discussions is the reality that for individuals earning more than $200,000 a year, their taxes already are going up in 2013, courtesy of Obamacare, which includes a new 1 percent tax on persons making more than $200,000 a year as well as an additional 3.8 percent tax on capital gains, investment income and certain home sales. These two new taxes will generate $317.7 billion over a 10-year period, or $31 billion a year — covering just a fraction of the current $1.1 trillion deficit for fiscal 2012 alone.
Do you know what some in Washington will say 10 years from now, when the problem hasn’t gone away? They’ll say, “We need to tax more.” Why isn’t the solution ever about spending less?
Some in Washington aren’t interested in the truth. They aren’t interested in facts. They aren’t interested in solving the problem. For them, that’s bad for business. It’s much easier for them to keep kicking the can down the road and using our fiscal decline to essentially “cry wolf” and raise your taxes. When will it ever stop?
I can guarantee you this: It won’t stop here, it won’t stop with just the “1 percent” or the “2 percent.” There will never be enough to satisfy this insatiable appetite to spend more.
That’s what’s really at stake right now.
The other side tries to boil this down into a seven-second sound bite about taxing the rich and people paying their fair share. In 2009, the top 10 percent of earners in the United States already paid more than 70 percent of federal income taxes.
This isn’t about fairness and unfairness. It’s about taxing and spending, and the federal government has spent enough.
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Gallup: Majority Of Americans Have Favorable Opinion Of The NRA
According to Gallup:
Fifty-four percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the National Rifle Association, while 38% have an unfavorable opinion. The public’s ratings of the NRA have fluctuated since first measured by Gallup in 1993 — from a low of 42% favorable in 1995 to a high of 60% in 2005.Tweet
… Favorable opinions of the NRA are much higher than average among the 45% of Americans who report having a gun in the household — although one in four view the NRA unfavorably. At the same time, four in 10 of those without a gun in the household have a favorable opinion of the NRA.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Irresponsible Journalist Publishes Names And Addresses Of Law-Abiding Gun Owners In Three Counties North Of New York City
"They've put me on the same level as a sex offender," rightfully complains a female 73-year-old firearm owner who apparently leaves journalists in New York shaking in their boots. The Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain information on registered law-abiding handgun owners in the area and proceeded to publish all the names and addresses.
Instead of demonizing responsible gun owners, how about some outrage for irresponsible journalists? Criminals now know where in three counties north of New York City the guns are – and aren't, which means they can target homes to steal guns when no one is home, or target homes without guns when people are home. It's anti-gun emotional zealotry overriding dispassioned reasoned debate, and endangering people for the sake of attacking one's opponents. This is a shameful tactic that has been used by the left regarding other political issues (e.g., publishing the names of any average citizen who donated to California's Proposition 8), and it's nothing short of inexcusable and disgusting. I guess since anti-gun activists talk about further restrictions on law-abiding gun ownership despite the Second Amendment, then how about discussing reasonable restrictions on reckless journalists despite the First Amendment? If anything, this journalist just accomplished making an argument against gun registration.
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Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Sacramento Man Uses Firearms To Defend Against Home Invasion By Three Armed Men, While Children's Sleepover In The House
I doubt many have heard the powerful recent story from only a few days ago of a team of armed gunmen invading a home in Sacramento, with a children's sleepover taking place. The news reported, that according to neighbors, there were kids in a home at 3:30AM being invaded by three armed hooligans. Of course you did not hear it, because it won't make national news. Why not? Because thankfully the homeowner was armed and was able to kill one of the gunmen and wound two others. The homeowner was wounded in a non-life threatening manner, and he and the children could very likely be dead if not for his bravery and for his firearm. Tweet
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
U.N. General Assembly Condemns Israel 22 Times In 2012, Does Not Condemn Hamas Even Once
UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS
Anti-Israel = 22 Anti-Hamas = 0 |
After years of refusing to condemn Hamas' serial missile attacks
targeting Israeli civilians, the UN General Assembly mustered the collective will to pass nine resolutions condemning Israel in one day, while refusing to even condemn Hamas, bringing the total number of UNGA anti-Israel resolutions for 2012 to 22. |
Monday, December 24, 2012
Character Education: Instilling Moral Values In Public Schools
"Dear God, Why do you allow so much violence in our schools?"
- Concerned Student
"Dear Concerned Student, I'm not allowed in schools."This pretend exchange went viral in response to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. But is there something to be said in a serious manner for the point this is getting across? Of course there is. Today we refuse to instill moral values in youth, and we are not better off for it.
- God
If anyone brings this up there are howls from ardent secularists that prayer will be reintroduced into the public schools. There is often controversy surrounding prayer in public schools, and it is based on the fear of Christian indoctrination of non-Christian students. While this has validity, the fact of the matter is that the absolutists pushing for complete secularism in the public sphere have, with the help of judges, crushed even any semblance of prayer even when there is no such threat. Going to extremes, there is not even a silent moment for individual prayer or meditation allowed, according to the courts. This to me is boneheaded judicial precedent with no relation to the original understanding of the First Amendment. In 1985, the Supreme Court in Wallace v. Jaffree declared it unconstitutional when Alabama set aside one minute at the start of each day for a moment "meditation or voluntary prayer." But this extends far beyond prayer, though prayer needed to be addressed at the outset because it is the first issue to be brought up when one points out the lack of ethical training in public places of learning.
The problem is that in our public schools no moral values or ethics are taught. One has to go to a religious school or a house of worship, in addition to a disciplined and disciplining parent at home, to be exposed to such ideas in any meaningful way that attempts to instill right and wrong in youth. Moral values involve the principles of knowing right from wrong. And a healthy society should have values, that which it deems important, in the realm of right and wrong. Morality and values, the National Education Association has found, top the list of issues of most concern to the American public. There is nothing wrong with character education, which does not exist in today's public schools. As Dennis Prager recently wrote, "until the contemporary period, religion and/or conscience development were ubiquitous" and society was better for it. Our society shows many signs of deep moral trouble (e.g., breakdown of the family, rampant sexuality at early ages with one in four teenage girls having contracted an STD, highest rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world, youth engaging in violent and criminal behavior, violence and promiscuity encouraged by entertainment/music, to name a few). Amidst all this, schools should not be ethical bystanders.
Theodore Roosevelt said, "To educate someone in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." And yet the fact is that schools have completely abandoned moral teaching.
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Thomas Sowell On Obama Going "Forward"
In an interview just prior to the 2012 election, Professor Sowell looks ahead at the likely implications of Obama's reelection: Tweet
David Gregory Mocks Wayne LaPierre For Proposing Armed Guards, But Sends Kids To High-Security School
But when it comes to Gregory's own kids, however, they are secured every school day by armed guards. The Gregory children go to school with the children of President Barack Obama, according to the Washington Post. That school is the co-ed Quaker school Sidwell Friends. According to a scan of the school's online faculty-staff directory, Sidwell has a security department made up of at least 11 people. Many of those are police officers, who are presumably armed. Moreover, with the Obama kids in attendance, there is a secret service presence at the institution, as well. It's safe to say the school where Gregory sends his kids is a high-security school. It's just odd he'd want it for his kids, but wouldn't be more open to it for others.Tweet
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Christianity "Close To Extinction" In Middle East
The study warns that Christians suffer greater hostility across the world than any other religious group. And it claims politicians have been “blind” to the extent of violence faced by Christians in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The most common threat to Christians abroad is militant Islam, it says, claiming that oppression in Muslim countries is often ignored because of a fear that criticism will be seen as “racism”. It warns that converts from Islam face being killed in Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Iran and risk severe legal penalties in other countries across the Middle East. The report, by the think tank Civitas, says: “It is generally accepted that many faith-based groups face discrimination or persecution to some degree. A far less widely grasped fact is that Christians are targeted more than any other body of believers.” It cites estimates that 200 million Christians, or 10 per cent of Christians worldwide, are “socially disadvantaged, harassed or actively oppressed for their beliefs.” “Exposing and combating the problem ought in my view to be political priorities across large areas of the world. That this is not the case tells us much about a questionable hierarchy of victimhood,” says the author, Rupert Shortt, a journalist and visiting fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. He adds: “The blind spot displayed by governments and other influential players is causing them to squander a broader opportunity. Religious freedom is the canary in the mine for human rights generally.”Tweet
Muslim Brotherhood Claims Victory In Egypt Shariah Constitution Vote
RT reports:
Egypt's new Sharia-based constitution has been approved in a second round of voting, the ruling Muslim Brotherhood party said. The country's opposition leveled accusations of fraud, saying it will appeal the referendum results.
The new charter was approved by 64 percent of Egyptian voters in a “resounding victory,” state news agency al-Ahram reported on Sunday. The preliminary tallies were calculated from reports by polling station officials. Egypt's election committee will confirm the final results on Monday.
Egypt's main opposition party the National Salvation Front (NSF) announced Sunday it will appeal the results of the referendum. NSF members alleged there were multiple instances of “fraud and violations” during the voting process.
“The referendum is not the end of the road. It is only one battle,” the NSF’s Abdel Ghaffer Shokr said, pledging to continue “the fight for the Egyptian people.”
The opposition has asked the electoral commission to “investigate the irregularities” before the vote's official results are announced on Monday.
“They’ve seen a number of instances of possible vote rigging, including unsupervised polling stations, missing ballot papers, stuffed ballot boxes,” Cairo-based journalist Bel Trew told RT. There were also reports of Salafist groups at polling stations coercing people into voting 'yes' on the new document, Trew said.
The opposition also criticized the first round of voting last Saturday, citing various incidents of fraud that have yet to be investigated.
The Egyptian opposition remains fiercely opposed to the new constitution, which was authored up by the Islamist-dominated Constituent Assembly. Opposition activists argue that the charter, which is based on Sharia law, is an affront to the values of the revolution that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak last year, and that it marginalizes Egypt's minority groups.
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Liberal Slate Magazine Blasts Obama For Narcisssism
Obama and his narcissistic streak, as written by none other than Slate:
Someone needs to tell Barack Obama—it must get particularly confusing this time of year—that his own birth is not Year One, the date around which all other events are understood. His much-noted, self-referential tic was on cringe-worthy display Friday when the president gave his eulogy for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, who served in Congress for half a century representing Obama’s birth state of Hawaii.
Inouye was a Japanese-American war hero (he lost an arm in World War II, destroying his dream of becoming a surgeon), and as a senator he served on the Watergate committee, helped rewrite our intelligence charter after scandals, and was chairman of the Senate committee that investigated the Iran-Contra affair. It’s the kind of material any eulogist could use to give a moving sense of the man and his accomplishment. But President Barack Obama’s remarks at Inouye’s funeral service were a bizarre twirl around his own personal Kodak carousel.
For more visit http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/12/barack_obama_s_eulogy_to_daniel_inouye_told_us_more_about_the_president.html
Friday, December 21, 2012
Obama Gives Cold Shoulder To Egyptian Secular Democrats
Michael Meunier is the President of Al Haya Party in Egypt. He is the founder of the U.S. Copts Association and a democracy, human rights and religious freedom activist. He wrote the following:
When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Egypt last July, she was met with widespread protest from Coptic Christians and secular activists objecting to what they all believed was the Obama administration's role in helping the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) ascend to power in Egypt. The secretary asked to meet with 10 Christian leaders, myself included. All of those invited refused to meet with her and boycotted her visit. Most of us had been both publically and privately warning members of Congress and the administration of the danger the Muslims Brotherhood poses and about their desire to turn Egypt into a theocratic Islamic fascist country. Yet we were ignored. Going back to April 2007, Democrats made special efforts to link up with the MB when visiting then-House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., met with Saad el-Katatni, the MB's parliamentary leader, at former U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone's home, at a time when then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has publically refused to meet with the Brotherhood. Mr. Ricciardone, who I can call a friend, once told me that his friendship with another MB leader, Essam El- Erian, extended for close to 30 years. Perhaps that was the catalyst for this meeting and subsequent meetings that took place at his residence. A stream of meetings, as well as public and private contacts, followed between current U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson and Brotherhood members since her arrival in Egypt shortly after the revolution. The ambassador seemed to favor the Brotherhood and the hard line Salafis over the rest of the secular players in Egypt. In fact, she has turned down requests for meetings from heads of political parties and other secular politicians, myself included, who oppose the Brotherhood. Other U.S. officials such as Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Sen. John Kerry made the pilgrimage to MB headquarters and made sure to meet with their shadowy influential leader, Khairat El-Shater, at times even publicly praising him Kerry did. Those visits were made during a time where no political group had emerged as a leader in post-revolution Egypt. The MB used these high-level meetings to tell the Egyptian people that the U.S. is supporting them and does not object to their rule. Many of us reached out to U.S. officials at the State Department and complained that the U.S. policy regarding the MB was putting the secular forces in Egypt at a disadvantage because it seemed to be propping the MB, but our concerns were dismissed. We warned of the MB's desire to impose Sharia law once in power and the grim effect it would have on the rights of the millions of Christians and moderate Muslims, and on women and children, yet all of our warnings were dismissed. It seems that a policy decision was made to bring the MB to power in Egypt at all costs, and it happened. After less than six months in office, President Mohamed Morsi issued an edict exempting his decrees from judicial review, and he is now forcing Egyptians to vote on a constitution that would impose Sharia law, violate human rights and religious freedom of Christians, degrade women, regulate child labor and kill the tourism industry for violating Islamic Sharia. Youth and large portions of the Egyptian population responded to the president's new powers and draft of the constitution by taking to the streets and surrounding the presidential palace in protest. Morsi then sent his own armed militia to attack the protesters with numerous weapons including shotguns, swords and firebombs. The Brotherhood militia killed 10 people, wounded hundreds and kidnapped top youth activists, and tortured them inside the presidential palace for two days before turning them over to the police. As the Supreme Constitutional Court was poised to dissolve the constitutional assembly, Morsi again sent his Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi militias to besiege the courthouse and prevent the judges from entering the building. Upon arrival, the judges were turned away by the militia after their lives had been threatened, and to this day the militias are still surrounding the courthouse preventing the judges from meeting. The president wanted to prevent the court from dissolving the assembly until after he pushes the referendum through and the constitution becomes effective. Morsi again sent his armed militia to burn down the opposition Al-Wafd Party headquarters in response to the opposition and media stepping up their protests and criticism of the constitution, which large numbers of Egyptians reject and view as a setback for freedom. They demolished cars and fired shots at the Al-Wafd Party, which is the oldest secular party in Egypt. Another set of Morsi's militia besieged "Media City" where most of the independent TV channels are located. The militia attacked TV anchors known to disagree with Morsi and prevented TV guests who are known to oppose Morsi from entering the city, so they could not appear on TV and criticize the referendum. Simultaneously, another group of the Morsi's militia attacked the headquarters of newspapers knowing to oppose Morsi and the referendum. The Al-Watan newspaper was among the newspapers whose editor-in-chief went on TV to appeal to the president to stop his militia from attacking reporters and the newspaper building. Through this all, President Obama's position amounts to, "This is an internal matter and we leave to the Egyptian people to sort out!!" What the Brotherhood is doing in Egypt is holding a gun to the head of its opposition trying to pass a constitution that so far failed to garner a greater support among Egyptians. Once that becomes the law of the land, the race is on to turn Egypt into another theocracy headed by an Islamist fascist regime that soon after will threaten the security of the free world. At the heart of it is the Obama administration and its failed foreign policy, and what I see as the desire to destroy moderate Egypt and turn it over to the fanatic elements of the society, creating a monster that will turn on its creator.Tweet
MPAA Chief: Hollywood “Stands Ready” To Talk About Violence
MPAA topper Chris Dodd has offered his condolences to the families of Friday’s shooting victims, marking the org’s first public statement since the killings that have heated up the national conversation about gun violence and the media. “As a citizen of Connecticut and having represented the people there for 36 years in Washington, I have been shocked and profoundly saddened by this tragedy. My heart goes out to the community as I know they will carry this pain with them long after the spotlight on Newtown has dimmed,” Dodd said in a statement issued Thursday. “As chairman of the MPAA and on behalf of the motion picture and television studios we represent, we join all Americans in expressing our sympathy as well as our horror and outrage at this senseless act of violence. Thus, I have reached out to the Administration to express our support for the President’s efforts in the wake of the Newtown tragedy. Those of us in the motion picture and television industry want to do our part to help America heal. We stand ready to be part of the national conversation.”Tweet
Jesse Ventura Puts Piers Morgan In His Place On Second Amendment
Jesse Ventura, who often sounds nuts, is able in this segment to get the audience to back him over Piers Morgan and support gun rights: Tweet
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Gun Control, Gun Free Zones, Non-Gun Issues, And The Newtown, CT Sandy Hook Massacre
There has been much talk recently about gun control and gun free zones in light of the tragic evil perpetrated in Newtown, Connecticut. Each issue must be discussed seperately.
The Danger of Gun Free ZonesAll the multiple victim public shootings (three or more deaths) since 1950 (except for one, i.e., the Gabby Giffords shooting where a concealed carry holder was very close to using his weapon to confront the killer but didn't end up having to) have occurred in an area where guns are banned. That is not a coincidence. A gun is needed to take down a mass-shooter, either by his own hand or in the hands of the innocent (citizen or law enforcement). A gun (or bomb) certainly makes it easier to kill 27 people. Too often, instead of having an armed citizenry with more concealed carry, the victims have to wait like sitting ducks for law enforcement to arrive, which means more death. That's what happened in Newtown, where the shooter was only taken out by his own weapon (the moment he heard first responders closing in). In choosing a soft target like an elementary school, this monster was bound to massacre the amounts he did. It's not the sort of target that is typically going to have anyone else around with any firepower, either citizen or security. In fact, many schools are by law considered "gun free zones," so in choosing this target in Connecticut which was by law a "gun free zone" he was certain there would be no opposition. This sorry excuse for a man that committed the heinous and cowardly Newtown massacre is a monster. And law-abiding citizens should be allowed guns, including the right to carry them, to protect themselves from monsters, in line with the Second Amendment.
UCLA professor emeritus James Q. Wilson, a respected expert on crime, police practices and guns, says, “We know from Census Bureau surveys that something beyond a hundred thousand uses of guns for self-defense occur every year. We know from smaller surveys of a commercial nature that the number may be as high as 2-and-a-half or 3 million. We don’t know what the right number is, but whatever the right number is, it’s not a trivial number.” Criminologist Gary Kleck estimates that 2.5 million Americans use guns to defend themselves each year. Out of that number, 400,000 believe that but for their firearms, they would have been dead. The point here is not to start arguing the statistics, or engage in a war of experts. It is only to show that, at the very least, it's not as you might hear from the anti-gun crowd, as the assertion that guns "cause more problems than they solve" is not so simple at all.
Bringing Back The Assault Weapons BanConnecticut already has strict gun control. It already has a ban on "assault weapons." The psychopathic Lanza's weapons were legal both under Connecticut law and the federal assault weapons ban that sunset in 2004. The Columbine shooting occurred when the federal ban was in effect. Letting the ban expire had no discernible impact on crime.
The bottom line, however, is that you don't want to have to wait for law enforcement to defend yourself. Carry a gun, a cop is too heavy.
It's Not All About GunsOne more very important point to add. Not everything is about guns. Having the media not publish the identity of the killers would be something the media needs to seriously consider so as not to fulfill the perverse drive of the suicidal to kill themselves while killing others and then have their face on every TV screen and newspaper (which many of these maniacs have expressly written about in their discovered personal writings before they commit these mass murders). Why won't the same media that gave this Adam Lanza the attention he wanted recognize their role in contributing as a motivating factor of the crazies, and they instead put a single focus on guns? Perhaps there are other cultural phenomenon we allow that breeds more violent psychopaths (e.g., extreme violence in video games/movies/television and its access to minors). Perhaps there needs to be a rethinking of how the law deals with mentally unstable people with violent tendencies. As for mental health, it's not all just spending, as John Fund wrote in the National Review:
"A lengthy study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least 38 of the 61 mass shooters in the past three decades 'displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.' New York Times columnist David Brooks and Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson have both suggested that the ACLU-inspired laws that make it so difficult to intervene and identify potentially dangerous people should be loosened. 'Will we address mental-health and educational-privacy laws, which instill fear of legal liability for reporting potentially violent mentally ill people to law enforcement?' asks Professor Jacobson. 'I doubt it.'"Not only that, but involuntary committal is far more difficult than it once was. Perhaps societal changes have also resulted in more violence, changes in the culture overall, as a wider culture that instills moral values in young people and places a primer on them might be a good idea as well.
Texas School Official: Stop School Shootings By Letting Teachers Fire Back
Fox News reports:
Lawmakers and educators in Texas say the way to guard against school shootings like last Friday's at a Connecticut elementary school is to make sure teachers can shoot back.
While the rampage that left 20 young children and six adults dead in a small Northeastern community has sparked a national debate on gun control, assault weapons and a culture of violence, David Thweatt, superintendent of the 103-student Harrold Independent School District in Wilbarger County, said his teachers are armed and ready to protect their young charges.
“We give our ‘Guardians’ training in addition to the regular Texas conceal-and-carry training,” Thweatt, whose school is about three hours northwest of Dallas, told FoxNews.com. “It mainly entails improving accuracy…You know, as educators, we don’t have to be police officers and learn about Miranda Rights and related procedures. We just have to be accurate.”
Thweatt is the architect of “The Guardian Plan,” a blueprint for arming school staff, including teachers, that may be catching on, at least in the Lone Star state. Teachers there are allowed to have weapons in the classroom, as Thweatt's faculty members do, but State Attorney General Greg Abbott suggested Monday that lawmakers may consider ways to encourage the practice statewide.
"Bearing arms whether by teachers and guards and things like that will be all a part of more comprehensive policy issues for the legislature to take up in the coming weeks," Abbott said. "And you can be assured in the aftermath of what happened in Connecticut that these legislators care dearly about the lives of students at their schools and they will evaluate all possible measures that are necessary to protect those lives," he said.
More momentum for the idea is evidenced by Austin gun shop dealer Crocket Keller, who announced his store will now extend the same discount on firearm purchases to teachers as it does to veterans.
Thweatt said there have been no incidents since October 2007, when his district adopted the plan giving an unspecified number of teachers and school staff -- dubbed "Guardians" -- authority to carry concealed weapons on school premises. Participating staff are anonymous and known only to Thweatt and the school board, which must approve each application for an employee to become a Guardian. They receive a small stipend annually.
“We’re 18 miles and 30 minutes from the nearest police station," Thweatt said. "So we are our first responders. If something happened here, we would have to protect our children. You know, police officers are true, everyday heroes in my book, but one of them once told me something very revealing. He said, ‘Ninety-five percent of the time, we get to the scene late.’ I can’t afford to let that happen.”
Each Guardian must obtain a Texas conceal-and-carry permit, and must lock-and-load their weapons with “frangible” bullets that break apart when colliding with a target. “They go through people,” assured Thweatt.
“They’re very similar to what the air marshals use. The bullets are glued together with polymers, and we insist upon them because we don’t want the bullet to ricochet off a wall after it’s fired and hit a child.”
Thweatt says parents have embraced The Guardian Plan, a fact evidenced by the transfer rate into his school district. “We’re a high-transfer district,” he told FoxNews.com, “which means only 18 percent of students come to the school because they live in the district. The rest transfer in or choose to come here from other districts.”
There’s a simple thread, Thweatt says, that binds together many of the mass shootings that have recently rocked the U.S.: They happened in places where the shooter knew there was going to be little resistance.
“These shooters, even though they are evil and have mental problems, they inevitably know where they are going,” explained Thweatt. “They are going where they won’t get any resistance. Let’s put it this way, would you put a sign in front of your house that says, ‘I am against guns. You will find no resistance here?’ That would be a stupid thing to do. You’re going to invite people who like to take advantage of helpless individuals.
“Would my policy have stopped this?” Thweatt asked. “Nobody knows for sure or for 100 percent, but what we do know is that active shooters go where there is no one there to resist. The Guardian Plan addresses that fact.”
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Robert Borks' Rules Of Order: A Conversation with Robert Bork
In memory of the late great Judge Robert Bork. How an originalist understands the Constitution of the United States: Tweet
The Great Judge Robert Bork Dies At Age 84
The great judge Robert Bork died today at age 84. He was a leading light calling for (and bringing the debate to the forefront) Constitutional adjudication to be guided by the original understanding of the Constitution. One of the few Americans to have his name turned into a verb after he was unfairly maligned and blocked from a seat on the Supreme Court because he would not abandon or compromise his abiding belief in the proper role of a judge in Constitutional interpretation, let us now remember and fight for the increasing vibrancy of his message:
"If the Constitution is law, then presumably its meaning, like that of all other law, is the meaning the lawmakers were understood to have intended. If the Constitution is law, then presumably, like all other law, the meaning the lawmakers intended is as binding upon judges as it is upon legislatures and executives. There is no other sense in which the Constitution can be what article VI proclaims it to be: 'Law....' This means, of course, that a judge, no matter on what court he sits, may never create new constitutional rights or destroy old ones. Any time he does so, he violates not only the limits to his own authority but, and for that reason, also violates the rights of the legislature and the people....the philosophy of original understanding is thus a necessary inference from the structure of government apparent on the face of the Constitution."
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Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Wall Street Journal: "ObamaCare's Faux Federalism"
From the WSJ:
Having failed to persuade 26 states that participating in ObamaCare is a good deal, the liberals behind the law are denouncing these dissident Governors as federalist hypocrites. A few critics on the right are chiming in and arguing that the 26 are inviting worse results once the feds swoop in. So someone ought to say a word on behalf of the people who run state governments in the real world and have examined the health insurance "exchange" question in detail. They've seen enough to know that the choice to set up and run these insurance bureaucracies is not a choice at all. The "federalism" ruse is a special instance of bad faith. If federal-state cooperation means anything, then it requires some element of genuine state control and the freedom to innovate. The Health and Human Services Department is abusing the laboratories-of-democracy line as cover even as it prohibits states from doing experiments. And it's dictating details down to the lab coats and microscopes. The folks at HHS envision the exchanges as centralized, interventionist, hyper-regulatory bodies. HHS's idea of flexibility is telling the states they can make the exchanges even more centralized and interventionist. But if they don't agree to that model, then Washington will impose it anyway. The truth is that liberals never wanted the states involved. In 2010, the Pelosi Democrats were forced to swallow a Senate bill that included state exchanges because it was the only ObamaCare vehicle after Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat. Now HHS is rewriting the law to create federal exchanges that the states only nominally govern. HHS for instance claims states can define the essential benefits that all plans must cover, within federal minimum standards, but those minimums are already much higher now than they were in the draft a few months ago. The Affordable Care Act forces states to use their own personnel and resources to do federal bidding and blurs if not erases the lines of political accountability between levels of government. ObamaCare also creates new obligations for the states even if they don't opt in. The press corps is uncritically accepting HHS's fantasy about the exchanges as sleek one-stop consumer websites resembling Travelocity or Expedia EXPE +2.83% . Er, this is not how state and local governments operate day to day.For more of the article visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323981504578179493975282974.html?mod=iPhone Tweet
Concealed Carry Permit Holder Confronted The Mall Shooter In Oregon
Despite a general media blackout, local KGW reports:
Nick Meli is emotionally drained. The 22-year-old was at Clackamas Town Center with a friend and her baby when a masked man opened fire. "I heard three shots and turned and looked at Casey and said, 'are you serious?,'" he said. The friend and baby hit the floor. Meli, who has a concealed carry permit, positioned himself behind a pillar. "He was working on his rifle," said Meli. "He kept pulling the charging handle and hitting the side." The break in gunfire allowed Meli to pull out his own gun, but he never took his eyes off the shooter. "As I was going down to pull, I saw someone in the back of the Charlotte move, and I knew if I fired and missed, I could hit them," he said. Meli took cover inside a nearby store. He never pulled the trigger. He stands by that decision. "I'm not beating myself up cause I didn't shoot him," said Meli. "I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself." The gunman was dead, but not before taking two innocent lives with him and taking the innocence of everyone else. "I don't ever want to see anyone that way ever," said Meli. "It just bothers me."Tweet
St Louis Police Chief Recommends Arming Civilian School Personnel
St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says it is time to talk about arming civilian school personnel following Friday’s massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, comparing it to arming airline pilots after September 11, 2001. “I see it no differently,” he said. “Pilots have been armed now for many many years, we’ve not had another hijacking and the issue is, for the bad guy, he doesn’t know which airplane he’s getting on, if the pilot is armed or not.” Fitch said the killing will not be stopped by legislation or laws. “If there’s somebody that’s really hellbent on doing something like this, they’re not going to care what the law is.”Tweet
Monday, December 17, 2012
WSJ's Stephens On Prospect Of Chuck Hagel Replacing Leon Panetta As Secretary Of Defense: "Hagel's Jewish Problem"
Prejudice—like cooking, wine-tasting and other consummations—has an olfactory element. When Chuck Hagel, the former GOP senator from Nebraska who is now a front-runner to be the next secretary of Defense, carries on about how "the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here," the odor is especially ripe. Ripe because a "Jewish lobby," as far as I'm aware, doesn't exist. No lesser authorities on the subject than John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby," have insisted the term Jewish lobby is "inaccurate and misleading, both because the [Israel] lobby includes non-Jews like Christian Zionists and because many Jewish Americans do not support the hard-line policies favored by its most powerful elements." Ripe because, whatever other political pressures Mr. Hagel might have had to endure during his years representing the Cornhusker state, winning over the state's Jewish voters—there are an estimated 6,100 Jewish Nebraskans in a state of 1.8 million people—was probably not a major political concern for Mr. Hagel compared to, say, the ethanol lobby. Ripe because the word "intimidates" ascribes to the so-called Jewish lobby powers that are at once vast, invisible and malevolent; and because it suggests that legislators who adopt positions friendly to that lobby are doing so not from political conviction but out of personal fear. Just what does that Jewish Lobby have on them? Ripe, finally, because Mr. Hagel's Jewish lobby remark was well in keeping with the broader pattern of his thinking. "I'm a United States Senator, not an Israeli Senator," Mr. Hagel told retired U.S. diplomat Aaron David Miller in 2006. "I'm a United States Senator. I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not a party. Not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that." Read these staccato utterances again to better appreciate their insipid and insinuating qualities, all combining to cast the usual slur on Jewish-Americans: Dual loyalty. Nobody questions Mr. Hagel's loyalty. He is only making those assertions to question the loyalty of others. Still, Mr. Hagel managed to say "I support Israel." This is the sort of thing one often hears from people who treat Israel as the Mideast equivalent of a neighborhood drunk who, for his own good, needs to be put in the clink to sober him up. In 2002, a year in which 457 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks (a figure proportionately equivalent to more than 20,000 fatalities in the U.S., or seven 9/11s), Mr. Hagel weighed in with the advice that "Israel must take steps to show its commitment to peace." This was two years after Yasser Arafat had been offered a state by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David. In 2006, Mr. Hagel described Israel's war against Hezbollah as "the systematic destruction of an American friend, the country and people of Lebanon." He later refused to sign a letter calling on the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. In 2007, he voted against designating Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, and also urged President Bush to open "direct, unconditional" talks with Iran to create "a historic new dynamic in U.S.-Iran relations." In 2009, Mr. Hagel urged the Obama administration to open direct talks with Hamas. In fairness to Mr. Hagel, all these positions emerge from his belief in the power of diplomatic engagement and talking with adversaries. The record of that kind of engagement—in 2008, Mr. Hagel and John Kerry co-authored an op-ed in this newspaper titled "It's Time to Talk to Syria"—hasn't been stellar, but at least it was borne of earnest motives. Yet it's worth noting that while Mr. Hagel is eager to engage the world's rogues without preconditions, his attitude toward Israel tends, at best, to the paternalistic. "The United States and Israel must understand that it is not in their long-term interests to allow themselves to become isolated in the Middle East and the world," he said in a 2006 Senate speech. It's a political Deep Thought worthy of Saturday Night Live's Jack Handey. Does Mr. Hagel reckon any other nation to be quite so blind to its own supposed self-interest as Israel? Now President Obama may nominate Mr. Hagel to take Leon Panetta's place at the Pentagon. As a purely score-settling matter, I almost hope he does. It would confirm a point I made in a column earlier this year, which is that Mr. Obama is not a friend of Israel. Perhaps the 63% of Jewish-Americans who cast their votes for Mr. Obama last month might belatedly take notice. Alternatively, maybe some of these voters could speak up now, before a nomination is announced, about the insult that a Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel would be. Jewish Democrats like to fancy their voice carries weight in their party. The prospect of this nomination is their chance to prove it.For more on Chuck Hagel's disturbing record visit http://freebeacon.com/the-critique-of-hagel/ Tweet
African-American Tea Party Congressman Appointed By South Carolina Governor Haley To Replace Jim Demint In The Senate
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) announced Monday that she will appoint Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) to the Senate. Scott will replace Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who is leaving the chamber in January to head up the conservative Heritage Foundation. “It is with great pleasure that I am announcing our next U.S. senator to be Congressman Tim Scott,” Haley said. “I am strongly convinced that the entire state understands that this is the right U.S. senator for our state and our country.” Sen.-designate Scott, 47, will become the only African-American currently serving in the Senate and the first black Republican to serve in the upper chamber since the 1970s. He will also be the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction.Tweet
Republican Governor Bobby Jindal: Make Contraceptive Pill An Over-The-Counter Product
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal proposes make birth-control medication an over-the-counter purchase:
As an unapologetic pro-life Republican, I also believe that every adult (18 years old and over) who wants contraception should be able to purchase it. But anyone who has a religious objection to contraception should not be forced by government health-care edicts to purchase it for others. And parents who believe, as I do, that their teenage children shouldn’t be involved with sex at all do not deserve ridicule.
Let’s ask the question: Why do women have to go see a doctor before they buy birth control? There are two answers. First, because big government says they should, even though requiring a doctor visit to get a drug that research shows is safe helps drive up health-care costs. Second, because big pharmaceutical companies benefit from it. They know that prices would be driven down if the companies had to compete in the marketplace once their contraceptives were sold over the counter.
So at present we have an odd situation. Thanks to President Obama and the pro-choice lobby, women can buy the morning-after pill over the counter without a prescription, but women cannot buy oral contraceptives over the counter unless they have a prescription. Contraception is a personal matter—the government shouldn’t be in the business of banning it or requiring a woman’s employer to keep tabs on her use of it. If an insurance company or those purchasing insurance want to cover birth control, they should be free to do so. If a consumer wants to buy birth control on her own, she should be free to do so.
Over-the-counter contraception would be easier to obtain if not for some unfortunate aspects of President Obama’s health-care law. One of the most egregious elements of that law is the hampering of Health Savings Accounts, which have become increasingly popular in recent years because they give Americans choices in how to spend their money on health care. By removing the ability of citizens to use their HSAs to purchase over-the-counter medicine tax-free if they don’t have a doctor’s prescription, President Obama hurt many middle-class families who counted on using their HSA dollars every flu season to take care of their children. Health Savings Accounts should cover over-the-counter purchases, and those should include contraception.
It’s time to put purchasing power back in the hands of consumers—not employers, not pharmaceutical companies, and not bureaucrats in Washington. The great thing about America is that power doesn’t come from government, but from people. It’s time to reclaim that power. It’s time to stop government from dividing people or insulting deeply held religious beliefs, and return the country to the path that has always made it great—one where Americans respect and value their fellow citizens, no matter their creed.Tweet
UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh Provides Examples Of Armed Citizens Stopping Mass Murder
Professor Volokh writes:
[H]ere are instances that I have seen, not counting killings
stopped by people who were off-duty police officers (or police officers
from other jurisdictions) at the time of the shooting.
1. In Pearl, Mississippi in 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned to death his mother at home, then killed two students and injured seven at his high school. As he was leaving the school, he was stopped by Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who had gone out to get a handgun from his car. I have seen sources that state that Woodham was on the way to Pearl Junior High School to continue shooting, though I couldn’t find any contemporaneous news articles that so state.
2. In Edinboro, Pennsylvania in 1996, 14-year-old Andrew Wurst shot and killed a teacher at a school dance, and shot and injured several other students. He had just left the dance hall, carrying his gun — possibly to attack more people, though the stories that I’ve seen are unclear — when he was confronted by the dance hall owner James Strand, who lived next door and kept a shotgun at home. It’s not clear whether Wurst was planning to kill others, would have gotten into a gun battle with the police, or would have otherwise killed more people had Strand not stopped him.
3. In Winnemucca, Nevada in 2008, Ernesto Villagomez killed two people and wounded two others in a bar filled with three hundred people. He was then shot and killed by a patron who was carrying a gun (and had a concealed carry license). It’s not clear whether Villagomez would have killed more people; the killings were apparently the result of a family feud, and I could see no information on whether Villagomez had more names on his list, nor could one tell whether he would have killed more people in trying to evade capture.
4. In Colorado Springs in 2007, Matthew Murray killed four people at a church. He was then shot several times by Jeanne Assam, a church member, volunteer security guard, and former police officer (she had been dismissed by a police department 10 years before, and to my knowledge hadn’t worked as a police officer since). Murray, knocked down and badly wounded, killed himself; it is again not clear whether he would have killed more people had he not been wounded, but my guess is that he would have.
So it appears that civilians armed with guns are sometimes willing to intervene to stop someone who had just committed a mass shooting in public. To read the professor's full post visit http://www.volokh.com/2012/12/14/do-civilians-armed-with-guns-ever-capture-kill-or-otherwise-stop-mass-shooters/ Tweet
Sunday, December 16, 2012
IBD - Obama To Troops: Don't Insult The Taliban, Pedophilia, Or Anything Related To Islam
Political Correctness: The administration blames U.S. troop rudeness for insider attacks by Afghan training partners. So it's issuing an etiquette book ordering them not to criticize "pedophilia" and other things Islamic.
Echoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who recently compared our troops to terrorists, the administration says troop insensitivity to Afghan culture, not Taliban infiltration, is behind the recent spike in deadly green-on-blue attacks.
In fact, a draft Army handbook advises troops against insulting not just sacred Islamic figures but the Taliban themselves. The 75-page manual lists among "taboo topics" of conversation between U.S. troops and their Afghan counterparts "making derogatory comments about the Taliban."
Also off-limits: "advocating women's rights," "any criticism of pedophilia," "mentioning homosexuality and homosexual conduct" or "anything related to Islam."
So let's get this straight. We spent our blood and treasure in Afghanistan over the past decade not to destroy the enemy and its brutal culture of terrorism, beheadings, stoning of women and child marriage and rape, but to protect and preserve them?
The extreme political correctness doesn't stop there.
The New York Post reported in September that to avoid offending Afghans, U.S. commanders are putting troops through intense Muslim sensitivity training. Among other things, they've been ordered to:
• Wear surgical gloves when handling the Quran.
• Never walk in front of a praying Muslim.
• Never show the bottom of boots while sitting or lying across from a Muslim, which in Islam is considered an insult.
• Never share photos of wives or daughters.
• Never smoke or eat in front of Muslims during the monthlong Ramadan fasting.
• Avoid winking, cursing or nose-blowing in the presence of Muslims — all viewed as insults in Islam.
• Avoid exiting the shower without a towel.
• Avoid offering and accepting things with the left hand, which in Islam is reserved for bodily hygiene.
It's outrageous that the administration would even suggest U.S. troops are to blame for their own murder at the hands of allegedly insulted Muslims.
More than 2,000 of our men and women in uniform have given their lives protecting Afghan families and their country from al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists.
This sensitivity program mirrors this administration's response to Muslims killing our diplomats and torching our embassies: Blame Americans, not the attackers. And apologize, while promising to be more sensitive to Islam.
Why not just convert security forces in these Muslim war zones to Islam and be done with it?Tweet
Domino's Pizza Founder, A Religious Catholic, Suing Federal Government Over Obamacare Contraception Mandate
Tom Monaghan is going to court over the mandate:
Tom Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, says contraception is not health care and instead is a “gravely immoral” practice. He’s a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, along with his Domino’s Farms, which runs an office park near Ann Arbor. Monaghan offers health insurance that excludes contraception and abortion for employees. The new law requires employers to offer insurance that includes contraception coverage or risk fines. Monaghan says the law violates his constitutional rights, and he’s asking a judge to strike down the mandate.Tweet
White House Won't Accept John Boehner's Offer To Raise Taxes On "Higher Earners" In Exchange For Entitlement Reforms
President Barack Obama is not ready to accept a new offer from the Republican leader of the U.S. the House of Representatives to raise taxes on top earners in exchange for major cuts in entitlement programs, a source said late Saturday.Tweet
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Congressman Calls For Stricter Gun Laws In Light Of Shooting And For President To "Exploit It" To Make It Happen
A Democratic Congressman calls for more gun control in light of the Connecticut shooting:
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who represents portions of New York City, said he was encouraged by Mr. Obama’s statement on Friday afternoon that the mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 20 young children, requires “meaningful action” by Congress, but hopes those words turn into concrete legislation. “These incidents, these horrible, horrible incidents … are happening more and more frequently. And they will continue to happen more and more frequently until someone with the bully pulpit, and that means the president, takes leadership and pushes Congress,” Mr. Nadler said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” with Ed Schultz. Mr. Nadler was asked whether the Newtown tragedy could be the turning point in many Democrats’ longstanding struggle to enact stronger gun laws. “I think we will be there if the president exploits it, and otherwise we’ll go on to the next” incident, Mr. Nadler said.Tweet
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Islamists Murder Seven In Thailand, Including 11-Month-Old Girl
From The Associated Press:
A baby girl was among seven people killed Tuesday by suspected Islamist separatists, police said, as a nearly 9-year-old insurgency in southern Thailand that has killed thousands of people shows no signs of letting up. Five people were killed and another four wounded in a drive-by shooting at a tea shop in Narathiwat province's Ra-ngae district, said local police chief Col. Jiradej Prasawang. The dead included 11-month-old Efahni Samoh, while the wounded included a 10-month-old boy, Muhammad Yaena. Jiradej said the shop may have been targeted by the gunmen, who were firing AK-47 assault rifles, because the owner is a village official. Officials and teachers, as representatives of the state, are prime targets for the insurgents, whose terror tactics are also thought to be aimed at scaring Buddhist residents fleeing the region. In a separate incident, five attackers shot dead a principal and a teacher at a school in neighbouring Pattani province's Mayo district before stealing a pickup truck as they fled, said Mayo police chief Col. Kong-art Suwannakham. The total number of school personnel killed in such attacks is now 157, according to the regional teachers association. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the three Muslim-dominated southernmost provinces of Buddhist-dominated Thailand since an Islamist insurgency erupted in January 2004.Tweet
Egyptian Man Sentenced To Three Years In Prison For Blasphemy
In the New York Times:
A Cairo court sentenced an atheist from a Christian family on Wednesday to three years in prison for insulting religion, firing up fears about the future of freedom of expression here just as Egyptians prepare to vote on an Islamist-backed draft constitution denounced by secular groups as failing to protect such rights. The convicted man, Albert Saber, is expected to be released on bail of about $167 pending an appeal. An open and avowed atheist, Mr. Saber, 27, was initially accused of circulating links to an offensive online video lampooning the Prophet Muhammad that set off protests across the Muslim world in September. Mr. Saber has denied promoting the video, and he is being charged for other statements critical of Islam and Christianity that police investigators found on his computer. Open profession of atheism is almost unheard-of in Egypt and is widely considered an affront to society as a whole. Although blasphemy was a criminal offense under former President Hosni Mubarak before Egypt’s revolution as well, Mr. Saber’s case has raised special alarm because it comes against the backdrop of the sometimes violent battle over Egypt’s draft constitution, which elevates the crime of insulting religion to the level of the charter itselfTweet
Gaza Children Simulate Firing Rockets At Israeli Civilians
Israel National News reports:
A generation comes of age: A video posted on social networks shows a group of Palestinian kids in Gaza simulating the firing of mortar shells at Israeli communities. Four kids are seen walking in a line along a fence meant to simulate the Gaza border fence. One child is carrying a pipe and another is holding what is meant to serve as a launching pad. Two other kids equipped with toy rifles serve as guards protecting the two "launchers." The video then shows the group preparing for the "rocket launch" and then quickly assembling their gear and escaping the scene. The children appear to be taking the exercise very seriously and putting great effort into doing everything according to protocol. Viewers who watched the video posted comments that praised the group. "These will be the future Palestinian leaders," one web-surfer wrote. Another remarked that "Hamas is a school that reaches martyrdom, courage and sacrifice."...Tweet
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